Teens Text, Don't Talk (You Knew That)

If it seems like American teens are texting all the time, it’s probably because on average they’re sending or receiving 3,339 texts a month, Nielsen says. 

Using recent data from monthly cell phone bills of more than 60,000 mobile subscribers as well as survey data from over 3,000 teens, The Nielsen Company analyzed mobile usage data among teens in the United States for the second quarter of 2010 (April 2010 – June 2010). 

Teens text, don't talk

Visa Introduces Suite of Mobile Services for U.S. Financial Institutions - MarketWatch

Visa has launched a suite of mobile services that allow financial institutions to offer their account holders mobile banking services, including account history and balances, as well as the ability to transfer funds between accounts and receive near real time transaction alerts on their mobile devices.

Developed with Monitise, the new platform is available as part of Visa's card issuer platform, Visa DPS.

Additional services are currently in development including mobile check deposit, mobile (NFC) payments, mobile offers, and support for V.me by Visa, Visa's digital wallet service. Visa Introduces Suite of Mobile Services

"The services offered by Visa DPS are a one-stop solution for Visa clients who want to serve their customers through the mobile channel without making significant investments in hardware, software or mobile expertise," said John Partridge, President, Visa Inc.

A4A Calls on the U.S. Government to Safeguard GPS, the Backbone of NextGen

If you pay attention to any part of the global telecom business, you know that government and regulatory policies literally create, and can limit or destroy, any particular business plan, in any particular segment of the business. Spectrum allocations provide an excellent example. LightSquared and Dish Network both want permission to create new Long Term Evolution fourth generation mobile networks, but neither effort can proceed without authorization from the Federal Communications Commission.

LightSquared has been battling the objections of the Global Positioning System industry, and now apparently faces formal public opposition from the airline industry.

Airlines for America (AfA), the industry trade organization for the leading U.S. airlines, called for the development of a governmentwide policy to protect the aviation Global Positioning System (GPS) spectrum in order to avoid any future threat of spectrum interference. You can read between the lines: AfA is opposed to granting of the LightSquared request to use its satellite spectrum for terrestrial operations.

“GPS is critically important to the millions of customers who airlines fly every day, and is the heart of a multibillion dollar system to modernize the air navigation system,” said AfA Senior Vice President for Safety, Security and Operations Tom Hendricks. More opposition to LightSquared

Because of Mobile, TV Now is a 2-Screen Experience

During Super Bowl XLVI,  41 percent of Google searches related to “Super Bowl ads” made during the game were made from mobile devices.



Nor is that sort of behavior unusual. About 45 percent of respondents polled by Nielsen who own both smart phones and tablets say they routinely multitask while watching television.



Separately, Velti commissioned a nationwide U.S. poll that indicated nearly 60 percent of mobile users planned to look at, or use their mobile device, during this year's Super Bowl.



The study, conducted by Harris Interactive, also suggested that 30 percent of viewers under the age of 45 would be watching the game with their device in hand, while 47 percent of all viewers age 18 and older expected to check or use their device up to 10 times during the game.



You might say much television viewing has become a two-screen experience, with complicated implications for content marketing or advertising. On one hand, the Google data suggests users were prompted to engage more heavily with brands featured during commercial breaks during the Super Bowl.



On the other hand, the Velti study suggested 13 percent of viewers were likely to use their mobile devices during game play. About 26 percent reported they were likely to look at or use their mobile device during commercial breaks.



So commercial breaks were twice as likely to be the times when users were turning to the second screen. For advertisers spending $3.5 million for each 30-second spot, use of the second screen might be seen as a positive.



“Mobile is the second screen that completes the full circle of user engagement, turning advertising into content," said Krishna Subramanian, Velti chief marketing officer.



That might be true when the content users are looking for on the second screen is related directly to a brand’s ad and message.



On the other hand, users often will be multitasking in other ways that compete with TV ads--at the Super Bowl or not--for attention. A study by Razorfish and Yahoo found that 38 percent of survey respondents found use of the Internet on a mobile or tablet device, watching TV, an enhancement to the viewing experience.



That suggests an opportunity to build more directly on television as a “two screen” experience, rather than a single screen experience. TV executives with long memories will remember the last 30 years of thinking about “interactive TV,” when researchers, suppliers and pundits looked for ways to create compelling experiences based on  viewer input and response.



As it turns out, users already have voted on how they want to interact, and it involves the Internet and a second screen of some sort, including PCs, notebooks, tablets and smart phones.

The Razorfish study suggests the top five content categories that seem to encourage multitasking are:

1. Reality shows
2. News programs
3. Comedy episodes
4. Sports events
5. Food programming

But most Super Bowl advertisers did not actively incorporate social media or overt Web addresses in their TV ads shown during the Super Bowl.


According to an analysis by Altimeter Group,  32 percent of the ads had no references to websites or social media sites, And only Best Buy had an "Act Now" promotion.


Mobile devices now make TV a "two screen" experience.

Facebook Hopes to Tap Mobile Ad Revenue

What does "display advertising" look like on a smart phone? For Facebook that might mean “featured stories,” inserted into end user news feeds. Facebook to tap mobile ads

Mobile advertising is complicated for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that on a smart phone, screen real estate is sharply limited, compared to a PC screen.

The other issue is that there are a few "mobile" screens to deal with, including smart phones and tablets of various sizes. Even where a larger tablet screen (10 inches or larger) is available, the difference in user input capabilities (touch screen versus keyboard and mouse) has to be considered.

In Facebook's case, there also is the specific challenge of creating ad formats for "Timeline," the new way Facebook shows profile pages.

Facebook also might want to create ways of linking a mobile message back to brand ads and content on other parts of Facebook, rather than leaving the Facebook environment.

Chrome for Android Launches

In 2008 Google launched Google Chrome. Now Google has launched Chrome for Android Beta, which brings many of the things you’ve come to love about Chrome to your Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone or tablet. 

Like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity, but it also features seamless sign-in and sync so users can take your personalized web browsing experience with them, across devices.

Unfortunately, Chrome is only available for people using the latest version of Android called Ice Cream Sandwich. Right now, Ice Cream Sandwich is only on a few devices. Unless you own a Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S, or Asus Transformer Prime.




With Chrome for Android, users can search, navigate and browse fast. Users can scroll through web pages as quickly as they can flick their fingers. When searching, top search results are loaded in the background.

Chrome for Android is designed from the ground up for mobile devices. Tabs so they fit just as naturally on a small-screen phone as they do on a larger screen tablet. Users can flip or swipe between an unlimited number of tabs using intuitive gestures, as if you’re holding a deck of cards in the palm of a hand, each one a new window to the web.

Mobile Execs See Mobile Payments as "Breakthrough Category" in 2012

Mobile industry executives surveyed by analyst Chetan Sharma think mobile payments will be the breakthrough category for 2012. 

The next breakthrough category is seen to be mobile commerce. 

Survey respondents tend to believe financial sector participants will be  the leaders in mobile payments, specifically firms such as Visa and MasterCard that run huge branded payment networks. 

Missing from the list of options, though, are "banks" and other participants that provide the credit or debit card functions. 

Perhaps of note, since 2011, respondents have boosted their opinions of the established payment networks, lowered their view of prospects for Isis, and now take a higher view of start-ups, Amazon and Apple. 

PayPal is viewed less favorably than in 2011, which some observers might find just the opposite of what might happen in 2012.